Archive for the ‘Links’ Category
Out my window, behind the block
this departs from our usual topic on reclaiming spaces, but they’re really nice documentations of urban life:
1. Behind the Block (left)
Discovered photographer Tobias Zielony from the book Shrinking Cities, an anthology that explores places of diminishing appeal. A snippet on Zielony’s work:
Behind the Block is a series of photographs portraying the everyday life of youths in Newport, Bristol, Marseille, and Halle. The search of their own identity no longer takes place in the school or family, but instead on the street or “behind the block”.
The series puts together his different projects on youths, but there’s only a limited glimpse online. It’s his documentation of their banal, quiet moments — rather than flurried activity — that makes it so poignant.
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2. Out My Window (bottom)
Gail Albert Halaban works on a documentary photography project on New York’s landscape through the window views of people. Her process is documented here, with snippets of interviews, and you can tell that the city is constantly changing with people having to adapt to it. Her final work was published in New York Magazine along with this really interesting article, Alone Together, that explores how urban loneliness might actually be a myth.
Her portfolio carries the entire collection.
Street Artist
Roadsworth is a street artist in Montreal who has really integrated his art with the streets and they are really very thought-provoking. Check him out here! I want to get hold of the video about him man, watch the trailer at the same site where he discusses his rational, legal issues and whether he sold out…
Urban Repair Squad
It has just occurred to me that GOOD magazine, that I subscribe to, features the “reclaiming” of the urban city too. The last time they were talking about Urban Golf, this time around they featured the Urban Repair Squad. They are a group of cyclists in Toronto who decided to create their own bike lanes when the city decided not to.
They basically go around with stencils and paint and carve out bike lanes and unsuspecting drivers actually follow them. I suppose if anyone does it in Singapore, you’ll be caught for vandalizing instead!
Another group of people reclaimed the basement of a shopping mall as an apartment, check out their adventure!
Finally, some guerrilla gardeners…
One thing I realise about the “reclaimers” featured in GOOD is that they are people of our age and have a more progressive mindset. This is in contrast to the people we have talked to thus far, they don’t see their actions as some greater good that would culminate into a movment, but really just something they want to do
Urban Golf
Check this out, people in the US are reclaiming the city to play golf!
“Where is Chomp Chomp?”
With regards to the foreign workers housing saga, click here to listen to the views of the Residents’ Action Committee Expelling Extremely Smelly Trespassers, or RACEES for short.
Courtesy of www.mrbrown.com
Mind your own backyard
The New York Times ran an article about how urban New Yorkers transformed their own backyards into personal sanctuaries, each distinct and flavourful.
Backyard Life, Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Three different worlds, three different summer days and evenings, but all unfolding in that most counterintuitive of New York spaces, the backyard. Screened from all but the envious eyes of aerial neighbors, New Yorkers with backyards awaken to birdsong and the occasional rabbit and entertain by the light of tiki torches. They swim in their own pools (even if they have to inflate them first), mow minuscule plots of Kentucky bluegrass, stage rock concerts, worship in revival tents, sun-dry the laundry on clotheslines, and barbecue jerk chicken in rusted oil-barrel smokers, or sirloin steak on Ultra Premium TruSear Viking grills.
Rest of story here. Click here for multimedia slideshow. One of the interviewees made a very poignant remark when asked about her lawn. She said: “This makes New York possible for me.”
Snippets
guardian.co.uk, 2008
Hurtling towards No Town Britain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2008/sep/03/communities
Seeking Law and Order on a Crowded Playground:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/nyregion/thecity/31skat.html?ref=thecity
Everyone Comes to McCarren Park:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/22/nyregion/082408-Mccarren_index.html [photo] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/nyregion/thecity/24mcca.html [article]
Positive occupation:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/27/housing.communities
Lost in the tunnels of bureaucracy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2008/aug/26/housing.socialexclusion
Hong Kong: The Front Door/The Back Door
Michael Wolf, 2004
Photographer Michael Wolf seems to nail it best:
If there is no more space inside, something must go out: mops, shovels, pots and pans are hung on hooks on the walls outside of apartments. In order to survive in this dense environment, one must be able to adapt. In comparison to the ordered and well planned european cities, Hongkong is almost like a plant – it grows organically, making space for itsself wherever possible. The face of a newly built public housing estate is a blank slate – several years later its facade reflects the ingeneuity and improvisational talents of its inhabitants.
Through my photographs I am exploring the adaptations to this lack of private space and invite to reflect upon what these improvisations reveal about the character of the inhabitants of Hongkong.
Hong Kong: The Front Door/The Back Door:
